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12.15.2008

Remaining assistants are packing up

Hey everyone. There is plenty of action going on here.

I just said my good-byes to Terry Price, which sucks. He's a good guy.

Also said my good-byes to James Willis. That was a different deal. His office wasn't that packed. As I was walking along with him, Willis was approached by an athletic department official who said: "Have you talked with Chizik yet?"

Willis said: "No."

The official said: "You need to."

... so I'm still not sure what to tell you with Willis. I know Joe Whitt Sr. is out and about trying to repair the recruiting damage.

SCHEDULE UPDATE: The press conference begins at 1 p.m. CST. I'll be live blogging it in a new thread.

RAYMOND COTTON OUTTIE: The Tigers' top high-school prospect, quarterback Raymond Cotton Jr., has de-committed. That information comes courtesy of our friends at AuburnSports.com. I wouldn't put too much credence into that development. The right coaches and the right system can get Auburn right back into the fray.

On Turner Gill: "We talked about the whole race thing in Alabama," Barkley said. "I told him it's there and it's going to be anywhere you go. I told him you can't not take the job because of racism. He was worried about being nothing more than a token interview. He was concerned about having a white wife. It's just very disappointing to me."

On Auburn's decision: "I think race was the No. 1 factor," said Barkley, who played basketball for three seasons at Auburn during the early 1980s. "You can say it's not about race, but you can't compare the two resumes and say [Chizik] deserved the job. Out of all the coaches they interviewed, Chizik probably had the worst resume."

That is very interesting about Willis and Chizik wanting to talk with him. I wouldn't expect that to necessarily mean things are going to change because if Chizik really meant Willis is gone too, I doubt he would change his mind.

AU1N04, I am thinking there wasn't a plan. I think Jacobs was honest when he said they wanted Tuberville to stay, although I don't think they meant for the long term. I think they likely looked at prospective coaches and realized he would be hard to replace this season. Bringing him back one more season would have made sense. If he flopped next season, getting rid of him would have been easy and we wouldn't have gotten the backlash from the coaching community.

Jay, the live info about the presser is mucho apprecianado today. I'm in the "live a long ways from Auburn" camp, so I need my fix.

As for this hire, I, like most AU fans, was outraged at first. But as it has had time to settle in, I am starting to accept it. I still don't necessarily like it, but I think it will be one of two things: A colassal hit or a colassal failure. If it's the former, then I'll personally buy coach and Jacobs a beer for my questioning. If it's the latter, then we'll be doing a search for an AD and a coach in four years time.

I'm sure Cotton is a talented QB. I was sure Burns was as well. I was sure Daniel Cobb transfering after barely losing the UGA job to Quincy Carter and playing a year of JuCo was going to be a good pick up for us.

It's weird with recruiting how you can be sure of something that just doesn't pan out.

Cotton may be the most talented QB ever, who knows, but I'm not sure I'd want to have to deal with his father every time something happens.

I may have to take some time off from HABOTN and all things Tiger football for quite awhile. All of this is depressing me more than losing to bama. I feel no hope and think we may be set back for the next 5 years, maybe longer. MichaelJanTerri out.

I personally wanted Gill, and I think he would have made a statement. Dumping all of the assistants is a mistake. We were very good to excellent on the defensive side of the ball. And they got no help from the O while incurring numerous penalties. Rhoads, Willis, Dunn, Price and company deserve better.

This is like the stock market. How low will we go before we bottom out?

THis idea about the QBs is just riduculous. I have to agree with WareagleRK. Daniel Cobb and Kodi Burns are prime examples of QBs that aren't quite up to their hype. I won't throw Todd in there because of the shoulder issue. The other two is a between the ears issue.

The kicker this year of the Burns fanatics were the ones around me that blamed the other players for his problems or the coaches for his one hoppers to the open receivers.

Before you are too critical of me about burns, if a 5 star qb comes to college and is that fundementally unsound, which he was, then he does not need to play. The coaches didn't ruin him and it is going to take about 2 years of breaking him down and building him up to get him ready. I am believing more and more that Burns is not that coachable. Cotton seems like more of the same. Campbell was much further along in his development than Burns at this stage.

The question is going to be what kind of QB do we want? That question will be predicated on what kind of offense do we want? As of yet, Burns has shown no ability to make good decisions consistently and he has shown that he loses his mechanics rather quickly after just a little pressure.

The recruiting aspect has been addressed well by others about losing recruits and about Cotton's daddy.

we just arent known for EVER bringing big time QB's inot this school. I agree, I thought Burns was the man, but as the season progressed I did see some improvement and then the Bama game was a total washout.

Has Charles Barkley ever said anything about the state of Alabama or Auburn without involving racism? If he is too good to live in this state, then he should keep his nose out of it because he thinks everything is about race, and its not.